Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Few Jews remain in Calcutta

The Calcutta Jewish community was founded by Jews from Syria and Iraq in the 18th century; today pupils at the Jewish Girls' school are mostly Muslim, BBC religious correspondent Rahul Tandon reports (with thanks: Lily):

It is a busy time for
pupils at the Jewish Girl's School in central Calcutta. Many of them are
taking their final exams. They are all smartly dressed in uniforms
which have the Star of David on their blouses, but their nervous mothers
waiting outside are wearing the 'salwar kameez', or 'burkas'.

Most of the students are now Muslims and few can remember the
last time a Jewish pupil was studying at the school. Like many in one
of the world's largest cities, they know little about the Calcutta Jews.

In her late 50s, writer Jael Silliman is trying to change
that. Before the community completely disappears, she - one of its
youngest members - is compiling a digital archive that will record their
history. Her inbox is full of photos and materials sent by members of
the Calcutta Jewish diaspora who are now scattered across the world.

Jael Silliman's mother, Flower, returned to Calcutta after settling in the USA and Israel

This was once a thriving community. The first Jew, Shalom
Cohen, arrived in the city in 1798 from Syria. His financial success
encouraged others to follow from Iraq and by World War II more than 5000
lived here. Now, less than 25 Jews call Calcutta their home.

Jael says: "Many left when it
became clear that the British were about to leave India as they were
worried about the direction the country was heading in and, once a few
started to go, others quickly followed."

They left behind one of the largest synagogues in Asia. The
Magen David was built in the mid 1880s and used to be crammed full of
families, with the men sitting downstairs and the women upstairs, on its
wooden pews. Heavily influenced by the design of the British churches
that were being constructed in Calcutta at the time, it has a steeple,
which is unusual for a synagogue.

Jael Silliman says that "the community had to write to the
Jewish leaders in Baghdad to get permission. When it was finally given,
there was a caveat that the steeple must be higher than all the
buildings that surrounded it."

The synagogue, which was the centre of this once vibrant community, now lies empty.

Outside its gates, most of the street vendors think it is a
church. When I tell them that it is actually a Jewish place of worship
they look confused. One of them asks me: "Are you sure?" But then his
friend adds: "He is right. This is the building that is looked after by
Rabul Khan."

Once you walk through its
gates, you will be met by the Synagogue's Muslim caretaker. Rabul Khan's
family have been looking after the Magen David for generations.

Whilst handing me a 'kippah', a Jewish cap to cover my head,
he smiles as he remembers the days when it was full for prayers, or
'namaaz', as he calls it.
As I am about to leave, he gestures to me to stop. He asks me a question: "Do you think they will come back?"

Not sure of how I should respond, I shrug my shoulders.

"Well, until they do, I will be here to look after this place for them," he says.
One of those who did return was Flower Silliman, Jael's
mother. She is in now in her 80s but has more energy than most 40 year
olds. She left Calcutta to set up home in the United States and then
Israel. But she always missed the city of her birth, because for her
being Indian is as important as being Jewish.

She describes her early life as "claustrophobically Jewish".
Except for her servants, all the people she knew were Jewish as her
parents were scared about assimilating into local life.

But Flower was ashamed of that, so she started to rebel. She
insisted on learning Hindi, not French, and when she was at college in
Delhi she joined the Indian independence movement.

She still vividly remembers the day she arrived back at
Howrah station wearing Indian clothes: "My mother was horrified, "
Flower tells me.

"To her it was like her daughter had gone to hell, and she
made it clear to me that I would never wear these clothes whilst I was
living under her roof."

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)